Volvo B7RLE

66963/4/5/7/9/75-87  KX05MJD/E/F/K/Z/MHA/E/H/J/K/L/M/N/O/U/V

Firstgroup placed a repeat order in 2005 for over 300 Wrights bodied Volvo B7RLE single deck vehicles. Over half of these 43 seat low floor vehicles are for their First Manchester operation to head off criticism from Greater Manchester PTE that the group is not investing in new vehicles for their operations in and around Manchester. The remainder of the batch of vehicles are being delivered to other urban group operations where heavy weight chassis vehicles are needed. This includes First Leicester. Interestingly the original vehicle order for Redditch garage was to be this type of vehicle but the order was altered to Enviro based buses because the unit cost was cheaper and the company could more vehicles for its money. With recent changes to the bus network in Worcester from 4th September 2005 six of the vehicles delivered new to First Leicester in April 2005 are being transferred to First Wyvern. All six of the vehicles have had to have minor modifications to their driver cabs to install standard First Wyvern driver cash trays. Union agreements mean all vehicles have to six individual cash holders usually in to two groups of three one above the other on the cab door. 66987 entered service ahead of the rest of the other vehicles during the first week of September with the remainder entering service in the second week of September. The vehicles were withdrawn during April 2006 and returned to Leicester. To cover for short term vehicle shortages First Leicester and First Northampton both loaned First Wyvern a single Volvo B7R during in Autumn 2005. 66969 arrived in October 2005 and returned to First Northampton in December 2005. 66976 arrived in September 2005 and returned to First Leicester in November 2005. During April 2006 66982-5 moved back to First Leicester as the vehicles were fitted with Real Time Information equipment for use in Leicester. The vehicles have been used to allow the frequency of service 74 in Leicester which runs to Ansley to be increased from every 15 minutes to every 10 minutes. To replace them 66964/5/7 from First Northampton these were at the very least on paper replaced with a number of L-reg Dennis Lances from First Wyvern. During July 2009 66979-66987 were acquired by First Midland Red from Leicester following service reductions for use mainly on the service 144. The first nine vehicles were joined by 3 more in October 2009